Conflagration: a story

By Joseph Mueller

James dreamt fire. Conflagration. That was a word he had
heard in a movie about the Hindenburg and later looked up in his fathers
enormous dictionary. There was a conflagration in the middle of the
night and James was the only one to realize the danger. Leaping out
of bed, he ran upstairs to wake his parents. Wake up! Wake up!

No one seemed to hear. Smoke inhalation, he thought, remembering
the phrase from television, they must all be unconscious. James ran
through the flames that blazed up and down the stairwell without thought
for his bare feet or his favorite green striped pajamas which were
sure to catch fire, especially around the frayed sleeves. But in the
dream, the stairs grew more numerous and the fire burned hotter and
more fearful. James could hear sirens but he knew they were too far
away, too slow to be able to help him now.

His parents were asleep on their bed. He knew he had to get his
mother out first because she was pregnant and he didnt want the
smoke inhalation to hurt the baby inside of her. But he wasnt
strong enough to lift her off of the bed and carry her out. He had
to wake his father. Dad! Dad! James screamed near his fathers
ear. Youve got to wake up and help Mom!

His father stirred, but he didnt wake up. James was desperate.
He thought of the time he had fallen off of the parallel bars at the
school gym and his father had slapped his face, trying to make James
say something, to open his eyes. For a long time after the accident,
James remembered the slap more than the pain from the fall. He slapped
his father on the cheek. Not too hard at first, but then, when his
father still did not rise, harder. James felt his fathers cheek
compress under the force of his open palm. He felt the night-stubble
on his face and the moisture from the side of his fathers mouth.
The thin trickle of spit slipping from the corner of his fathers
lips made him angry. James slapped his father one more time, really
hard, leaving a red hand print on the side of his face. His palm hurt,
but his father was coming awake now, groggy, but moving. Dad!
James yelled. Theres a fire and youve got to get
Mom out of here! His fathers eyes widened with fright.
A fire? Here?

No time for questions, James said. He had seen Mr.
Fantastic say that to The Thing when immediate action was necessary
and there was no time for explanations. Youre going to
have to go out the window, the stairs are too weak to hold both of
you. Here, he said tying two sheets together at their corners,
Ill tie Mom to your back and you can lower yourself down
to the ground. His father looked at James with a new respect
in his eyes.

His father looked like he was about to say something, something
like, I always knew you were a hero, or Youre
the best, but the fire was growing hotter as James pushed his
parents toward the window.

The sirens were getting closer now but the fire was also burning
stronger. James had to get out of the house, fast. He could hear the
roaring the flames made as they swallowed more and more of his house.
He could smell the chemical stink of the new vinyl siding curling and
melting into ugly brick-colored clots. Following his parents out the
window, James was stopped by the nagging feeling that he was forgetting
something, something extremely important.

Renee! he cried. I forgot Renee! Renee
was in James fourth grade class. James thought she was beautiful.
In this dream she was sleeping over at his house because her parents
had gone away somewhere on a trip.

James leapt from the top of the stairwell to the front door landing
because the stairs were almost burned away, He could see figures out
in the front yard; his parents, a fire truck, firemen. James leapt
again, directly through a wall of flame that was advancing down the
lower steps. The right sleeve of his green-striped pajamas caught fire
and James ripped the sleeve from him, leaving it to burn with the stairs.

The house was really burning now and James could barely see anything
through the smoke and the heat and the flames. Then he heard someone
calling his name, James! James! Where are you? It was Renee.
He had to save her. He was her only hope. He could hear the roof collapsing
into the upper floor of the house. Soon, the whole structure would
fall right into the basement, right onto their heads. Im
coming! James shouted above the roaring and cracking of the fire.
He found Renee in his mothers sewing room. She was sitting on
the floor crying, holding her left ankle with both hands. Oh
James, she said, you found me. I dont think I can
walk.

James heard the screams of the nails and screws that held the
house together as they were pulled from their places by the tremendous
weight of the collapsing home. He heard the fire engines outside but
knew that the firemen in their heavy black jackets would never be able
to fight their way through the blaze to save them. Images of his family
and his neighbors out in the street, barefoot and in their night clothes,
filled his thoughts. His mother would be huddled under a blanket Mrs.
Aspitale would bring out from her home next door. Everyone would be
crying. The firemen would not let James father near the house.
His father would be screaming and crying too; James! My son!
But the firemen would say, Theres no way anyone could survive
that inferno in there. We cant even get close enough to use our
axes.

James didnt want his family to suffer. He thought about
the sadness in Renees parents eyes when they found out
she was dead, burnt and buried with James. They wouldnt even
have the bodies for the funerals. Maybe his parents and Renees
parents would buy one tombstone for the both of them, James and
Renee it would read, Forever. He had to get them
out of there, now. Finding some reserve of incredible strength, James,
coughing from the smoke, lifted Renee into his arms. Throw that
blanket over us, quick! Were going to make a run for it!

James rushed through the hallway toward the back door, his feet
starting to burn from the boiling floor. Renee was heavy in his arms.
He could feel the heat of the flames on his back and the singeing pain
in his lungs. He reached the door and kicked through the flames, knocking
it open. There was a great howl and screech as what was left of the
house collapsed in on itself.

Silence from the people in the street. There was no sound. The
sirens were all quiet, just their red and white lights going around
and around. James father fell to his knees, his head dropping
to his chest. His mother was trembling, her skin drained of all color.
Suddenly, James, with burnt feet and singed hair, one sleeve missing
from his green striped pajamas, walked slowly from around the corner
of what once was his house, carrying in his arms the smiling Renee.
The crowd couldnt believe their eyes. James father slowly
lifted his head, his tears of pain turning to tears of joy and pride.
James, his father said, lifting him off the ground, youre
a hero. The crowd roared.

James woke up.

Once James had dreamt that he had saved his father from a zeppelin
crash. He had rescued Renee from earthquakes and tornadoes and even
a villainous submarine captain whose name was Zemo.

James could not return to sleep. He lay awake, his head underneath
the window, listening to the first of the morning birds chirp and warble.
James thought that the bigger birds, the crows and ravens, even the
jays, must still be asleep. Maybe the little birds had to be up early
to find food before the big birds woke up and took it all away from
them. It was like the shower in the morning. If he got out of bed early
enough he could take a nice hot shower before school, but if he stayed
in bed for even a few minutes too long, his father and then his mother
and his sister would use up all of the hot water. He turned over onto
his stomach and looked out the window into his backyard. The shed his
father was building stood, three walls already constructed, in the
corner of the yard near the Aspitales fence.

James had helped his father with the walls. He had carried some
of the two-by-fours, dragging the ends of the longer ones in the dirt.
His father had shown him how to hammer the nails into the wood with
smooth steady blows. James enjoyed the feel of the hammer in his hand,
the arc of the motion that brought the heavy metal head down onto the
waiting nail. He could hammer all day. Out in the sun, his father had
taken his shirt off, mopping the sweat off of his face with it. James
hitched his hammer into the belt of his pants and did the same. He
liked not wearing his shirt and working with his father.

How are my two men doing out here? his mother had
asked, bringing out a pitcher of lemonade. She set the glasses down
on a pile of shingles and poured. James handed the first glass to his
father. When James held his own glass his father raised his and they
clinked their glasses together. Clink. The ice and the liquid swished
against the curve of James glass and for a moment, in the afternoon
light, it seemed to James that he held the sun itself in his hands.
His father smiled and James felt some wonderful feeling rise in his
chest. He wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. He opened his mouth
to say something, he wasnt sure what, maybe just the word Dad
when the lemonade glass, slick with condensation, slipped from his
fingers and smashed on the sheds concrete floor.

His father stopped smiling. Why the hell are you so clumsy?
he spat, turning his back to James. Go get the broom and clean
that up.

James fought the tears that were building in his eyes, in his
chest. His face burned red. He got the broom from the house and swept
the glass onto a piece of cardboard without saying a word. He turned
and walked back to the house, leaving the broom, hoping his father
would call him back, tell him that everything was okay, that he wanted
him to stay and work on the shed. His father said nothing.

For godsake, Jim, James heard his mother say, hes
only a boy.

What did I do? his father asked. James mother
said nothing and his father went back to work.

James let himself slide from the bed on his stomach, his pajama
shirt rising up to his chest. Outside was still hazy gray, but the
sun would rise like a ball of fire soon. He walked quietly up the stairs,
placing his weight close to the edges of each step where the wood didnt
squeak as much. In his dream, the middle of the steps burned first.
The black iron railing was cool in his hand. The rail was round and
firm and reminded him of holding the hammer in the shed.

James took a big gulp of orange juice right from the container
and closed the refrigerator door carefully. Without the refrigerator
light, everything was murky in the kitchen. It wasnt really dark
and not really light; a big grey area that James stood at the center
of. James shivered, though he wasnt cold. On the kitchen table,
at the base of the candles his mother had lit at dinner, sat an open
matchbook.

James picked it up and looked at the cover. On a yellow background
stood a muscular, bare-chested man who promised mastery over your own
future through a regimen of special exercises. James fingered the matches
sandwiched tightly together between the picture of Mr. Muscle and an
ad for pennies worth a million dollars. He rubbed the sulphur head
of one match with his thumbnail and then touched his tongue to the
white powder. James spat into the kitchen garbage can. He held the
matchbook, open, at an angle in front of him. The matches looked like
white helmeted soldiers, standing in formation under a yellow tent.
The matches missing were their fallen comrades, James thought, heroes
for some cause. Burning heroes.

James put his forehead to the kitchen window and felt the cool
morning glass begin to warm with his breath and the slowly rising sun.
He pressed his open mouth on the glass and let his breath warm a greater
area. The hotter he breathed on the window the faster the sun would
come up, furious and burning. There was a noise from his parents
room down the hall.

James slipped the matchbook into the single pocket of his green
striped pajamas.